The present invention relates to a method for mounting a linear sliding device.
A conventional linear sliding device is composed of a shaft and an outer sleeve fitted around the shaft and sliding in a linear manner relative to the shaft. The outer sleeve is moved in the linear manner relative to the shaft by rolling balls in a ball endless loop formed in the interior of the outer sleeve.
In order to mount and fix the outer sleeve of such a linear sliding device onto a housing, conventionally, a flange portion is provided on an outer circumferential portion of the outer sleeve, and the outer sleeve is mounted and fixed onto the housing by using a mounting hole formed in the flange portion. Alternatively, a key groove is formed along an axial direction of the outer sleeve on the outer circumferential surface of the outer sleeve and a key groove is also formed on the housing. A key is disposed in both key grooves to thereby mount and fix the outer sleeve onto the housing.
However, in the former mounting and fixing method, since the flange portion is formed integrally with the outer sleeve, that is, since the outer sleeve and the flange portion are simultaneously formed by cutting predetermined material, it takes a very long time for the work and at the same time, a weight of the outer sleeve is increased corresponding to the flanged portion.
Also, in the latter mounting and fixing method, it is necessary to machine the key grooves with high precision. A cost for machining the key grooves is very high. Furthermore, it is necessary to effect a slotter work to the inner diameter portion of the housing. It is very difficult to effect the slotter work to increase the working cost. In particular, in the case where the outer diameter of the outer sleeve is small, it is very difficult to work a key groove in the outer sleeve and further difficult to effect the slotter work of the housing, further increasing a manufacture cost.
Also, in addition to the above-described two mounting methods, there is a method in which a hole passing up to a mounting hole into which the outer sleeve is inserted is provided and a bolt or the like is threadedly fitted into this hole to fasten and fix the outer sleeve disposed in the mounting hole. However, this method suffers from a problem that the outer sleeve is deformed because the outer circumferential surface of the outer sleeve is depressed by the bolt or the like.